PREFACE.--In a specific, evangelical sense, sanctification is the act of separating a person or thing from a common to a special and spiritual use. In the following chapter on Sanctification, we have dilated, in a discursive way, on the whole subject of spiritual influence, in illumination and conversion, as terminating in sanctification. These, indeed, are concurrent means of self-consecration and of Divine sanctification or separation to God. But, in strict reference to our specific object, here, we have only to state, that the Christian is contemplated, not merely as adopted into the family of God, not merely as pardoned or justified, but, as also sanctified or consecrated to [285] God, both in state and character. Of this separation or sanctification to God, the Holy Spirit,--which, in the Christian, is the Holy Guest, commonly called the Holy Ghost, is the personal agent and author, his word the instrument, and the blood of Christ, apprehended and received by faith, the real, cleansing, purifying means.

      Holiness is literally separation from the earth to God and heaven. Faith, therefore, in the unseen, the spiritual, and the heavenly, is as necessary to sanctification as to justification, pardon, or adoption. We are justified by faith, sanctified by faith, whatever the instrument or means may be; whether the word of God, the blood of Christ, or the ordinance of baptism. The reason of this is, that without faith every man is spiritually blind, and dead to the things of God, of Christ, and heaven. Well has Paul defined it to be the evidence or conviction of things not seen, and, consequently, the confidence of things hoped for. But faith, as James teaches, is perfected only by obedience. In reference to this and to our baptism, we are said to be washed or purified by the bath of regeneration, sometimes called "the washing of the new birth," and by the "renewal of the Holy Spirit."

      In the following essay, we have argued the whole subject of spiritual influence, as understood and taught by us, and as terminating in our sanctification and holiness, which, indeed, is the glorious consummation of the whole Christian dispensation. "For, without holiness, no man shall see," or enjoy, "God." "Happy the pure in heart," said the great Teacher, "for they shall see God," "in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

      ON the subject of spiritual influence, there are two extremes of doctrine. There is the Word alone system, and there is the Spirit alone system. I believe in neither. The former is the parent of a cold, lifeless rationalism and formality. The latter is, in some temperaments, the cause of a wild, irrepressible enthusiasm; and, in other cases, of a dark, melancholy despondency. With some, there is a sort of compound system, claiming both the Spirit and the Word--representing the naked Spirit of God operating upon the naked soul of a man, without any argument or motive interposed, in some mysterious and [286] inexplicable way--incubating the soul, quickening, or making it spiritually alive, by a direct and immediate contact, without the intervention of one moral idea or impression. But, after this creating act, there is the bringing to bear upon it the gospel revelation, called conversion. Hence, in this school, regeneration is the cause; and conversion, at some future time, the result of that abstract operation.

      There yet remains another school, which never speculatively separates the Word and the Spirit; which, in every case of conversion, contemplates them as co-operating; or, which is the same thing, conceives of the Spirit of God as clothed with the gospel motives and arguments--enlightening, convincing, persuading sinners, and thus enabling them to flee from the wrath to come. In this school, conversion and regeneration are terms indicative of a moral or spiritual change--of a change accomplished through the arguments;--the light, the love, the grace of God expressed and revealed, as well as approved by the supernatural attestations of the Holy Spirit. They believe, and teach, that it is the Spirit that quickens, and that the Word of God--the Living Word--is that incorruptible seed which, when planted in the heart, vegetates, and germinates, and grows, and fructifies into eternal life. They hold it to be unscriptural, irrational, unphilosophic to discriminate between spiritual agency and instrumentality--between what the Word, per se, and the Spirit, per se, severally does, as though they were two independent and wholly distinct powers or influences. They object not to the co-operation of secondary causes; of various subordinate instrumentalities; the ministry of men; the ministry of angels; the doctrine of special providences; but, however, whenever the Word gets into the heart--the spiritual seed into the moral nature of man, it as naturally, as spontaneously grows there as the sound, good corn when deposited in the genial earth. It has life in it; and is, therefore, sublimely and divinely called "The Living and Effectual Word."

      I prefer the comparisons of the Great Teacher. They are the most appropriate. We frequently err when handling these, because, in our quest of forbidden knowledge, we are disposed to carry them farther than he himself did. In the opening parable of the Gospel Age--a parable placed first in the synopsis of parables by Matthew, Mark, and Luke--he thus compares the Word of God to seed; and, with reference to this figure, he [287] compares the human heart to soil, distributed into six varieties; the trodden pathway, the rocky field, the thorny cliff, the rich alluvion, the better, and the best of that. But we are not content with that beautiful and instructive representation of the philosophy of conversion. We must transcend these limits. We must explain the theory of soils. We must even become spiritual geologists, and explore all the strata of mother earth; and, even then, there yet remains an infinite series of whys and wherefores, concerning all the reasons of things connected with these varieties. These speculations, and the conflicting theories to which they have given birth, we will and bequeath to the more curious and speculative, and will farther premise some things necessary to a proper opening of the argument.

      Man, by his fall, or apostasy from God, lost three things--union with God, original righteousness, and original holiness. In consequence of these tremendous losses, he forfeited life, lost the right of inheriting the earth, and became subject to all the physical evils of this world. He is, therefore, with the earth on which he lives, doomed to destruction; meanwhile, a remedial system is introduced, originating in the free, sovereign, and unmerited favour of God; not, indeed, to restore man to an Eden lost--to, an inheritance forfeited--to a life enjoyed before his alienation from his Divine Father and benefactor. This supremely glorious and transcendent scheme of almighty love, contemplates a nearer, more intimate, and more sublime union with God, than that enjoyed in ancient Paradise--a union, too, enduring as eternity--as indestructible as the Divine essence. It bestows on man an everlasting righteousness, a perfect holiness, and an enduring blessedness in the presence of God for ever and ever.

      To accomplish this a new manifestation of the divinity became necessary. Hence the development of a plurality of existence in the Divine Nature. The God of the first chapter of Genesis is the Lord God of the second. Light advances as the pages of human history multiply, until we have God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, revealed in the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. But, it was not until the Sun of Righteousness arose--till the Word became incarnate and dwelt among us--till we beheld his glory as that of an only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; it was not till Jesus of Nazareth had finished the work of atonement on the hill of Calvary--till he had brought [288] life and immortality to light, by his revival and resurrection from the sealed sepulchre of the Arimathean senator; it was not till he gave a commission to convert the whole world, that the development of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit was fully perfected and completed. Since the descent of the Holy Spirit, on the birth-day of Christ's church--since the glorious immersion of the three thousand triumphs of the memorable Pentecost, the church has enjoyed the mysterious and sublime light of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as one Divinity, manifesting itself in these incomprehensible relations, in order to effect the complete recovery and perfect redemption of man from the guilt, the pollution, the power, and the punishment of sin.

      No one believes more firmly than I, and no one, I presume, endeavours to teach more distinctly and comprehensively than I, this mysterious, sublime, and incomprehensible plurality and unity in the Godhead. It is a relation that may be apprehended by all, though comprehended by none. It has its insuperable necessity in the present condition o€ the universe. Without it, no one can believe in, or be reconciled to, the remedial policy, as developed in the apostolic writings. And, indeed, I have no more faith in any man's profession of religion, than I have in the sincerity of Mahomet, who does not believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit as co-operating in the illumination, pardon, and sanctification of fallen, sinful, and degraded man. While, then, I repudiate, with all my heart, the scholastic jargon of the Arian, Unitarian, and Trinitarian hypotheses, I stand up before heaven and earth in defence of the sacred style--in the fair, full, and perfect comprehension of all its words and sentences, according to the canons of a sound, exegetical interpretation.

      I COULD not, indeed, esteem as of any value the religion of any man, as respects the grand affair of eternal life, whose religion is not begun, carried on, and completed by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit. Nay, I esteem it the peculiar excellence and glory of our religion, that it is spiritual; that the soul of man is quickened, enlightened, sanctified and consoled by the indwelling presence of the Spirit of the eternal God. But, while avowing these my convictions, I have no more fellowship with those false and pernicious theories that confound the peculiar work of the Father with that of the Son, or with that of the [289] Holy Spirit, or the work of any of these awful names with that of another; or which represent our illumination, conversion, and sanctification as the work of the Spirit, without the knowledge, belief and obedience of the gospel, as written by the holy apostles and evangelists, than I have with the author and finisher of the book of Mormon.

      The revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not more clear and distinct than are the different offices assumed and performed by these glorious and ineffable Three in the present affairs of the universe. It is true, so far as unity of design and concurrence of action are contemplated, they co-operate in every work of creation, providence, and redemption. Such is the concurrence expressed by the Messiah in these words--"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"--"I and my Father are one" "Whatsoever the Father doeth, the Son doeth likewise:" but not such a concurrence as annuls personality, impairs or interferes with the distinct offices of each in the salvation of man. For example: the Father sends his Son, and not the Son his Father. The Father provides a body and soul for his Son, and not the Son for his Father. The Son offers up that body and soul for sin, and thus expiates it, which the Father does not, but accepts it. The Father and the Son send forth the Spirit, and not the Spirit either. The Spirit now advocates Christ's cause, and not Christ his own cause. The Holy Spirit now animates the church with his presence, and not Christ himself. He is the Head of the church, while the Spirit is the heart of it. The Father originates all, the Son executes all, the Spirit consummates all. Eternal volition, design, and mission belong to the Father; reconciliation to the Son; sanctification to the Spirit. In each of these terms there are numerous terms and ideas of subordinate extent, to which we cannot now advert. At present, we consider the subject in its general character, and not in its particular details.

      In the distribution of official agency, as it presents itself to our apprehension, with reference to the subject before us, we regard the benevolent design and plan of man's redemption, as originating in the bosom of our Divine Father; the atonement, or sacrificial ransom, as the peculiar work of the Messiah; and the advocacy of his cause, in accomplishing the conversion and sanctification of the world, the peculiar mission and office of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Spirit is the author of the written Word, as [290] much as Jesus Christ is the author of the blood of atonement. The atoning blood of the everlasting covenant is not more peculiarly the blood of Jesus Christ, than is the Bible the immediate work of the Holy Spirit, inspired and dictated by him; "for holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" Now, as Jesus, the Messiah, in the work of mediation, operates through his blood; so the Holy Spirit, in his official agency, operates through his word and its ordinances. And thus we have arrived at the proper consideration of our proposition, to wit: In conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of Truth.

      In how many other ways the Spirit of God may operate in nature, or in society, in the way of dreams, visions, and miracles, comes not within the premises contained in our proposition. To what extent He may operate in suggestions, special providences, or in any other way, is neither affirmed nor denied in the proposition before us. It has respect to conversion and sanctification only. Whatever ground is fairly covered by these terms, belongs to this discussion. What lies not within these precincts, comes not now legitimately before us.

      I. Our first argument in proof of our proposition shall be drawn from the constitution of the human mind.

      That the human mind has a specific and well-defined constitution, is as evident as that the body has a peculiar organization; or that the universe itself has one grand code of laws which governs it. Our intellectual and moral constitution, as well as our physical, has its peculiar powers and capacities--not one of which is violated on the part of its Creator, in our remedial administration, any more than are our sensitive and animal faculties destroyed or violated by the physician who rationally and benevolently aims at our restoration to health from some physical malady. No new faculties are imparted--no old faculty destroyed! They are neither more nor less in number; they are neither better nor worse in kind. Paul the apostle and Saul of Tarsus are the same person, so far as all the animal, intellectual, and moral powers are concerned. His mental and physical temperaments were just the same after, as before be became a Christian. The Spirit of God, in effecting this great change, does not violate, metamorphose, or annihilate any power or faculty of the man, in making the saint. He merely receives new ideas, and new impressions, and undergoes a great moral or spiritual [291] change--so that he becomes alive wherein he was dead, and dead wherein he was formerly alive.

      As the body or outward man has its peculiar organization, so has the mind. Both are organized in perfect adaptation to a world without us: the one to a world of sensible and material objects, the other to that world, and to a spiritual system also, with which it is to have spiritual intimacy and communion. But the mind is to commune with its Creator, and its Creator with it, through material as well as through spiritual nature: and for this purpose he has endowed it with faculties, and the body with senses, favourable to these benevolent designs.

      Now, as the body has to subsist upon material nature, and the mind upon the spiritual system, both are so organized and furnished as to secure and assimilate so much of both as are necessary for this end. Thus, for example, the body lives, moves, and has its being in the midst of matter from which it is to draw perpetual sustenance and comfort. For doing this, it is admirably fitted with an animal machinery, created for this purpose, without which animal life would immediately become extinct. The lungs are fitted for respiration, and the stomach is furnished with all the powers necessary to the reception, digestion, and assimilation of so much material nature as is necessary to the healthful, vigorous, and comfortable subsistence of the body. But nothing from without can afford it subsistence or comfort, but in harmony with this organization.

      Man, then, has to live by breathing, eating, and drinking; and, without these operations, nothing around him can afford him life and comfort. Nothing of the bounties of nature can administer to his animal enjoyments in any other way. God, then, feeds and sustains man in perfect harmony with this organization. He neither dispenses with any of these powers nor violates them, in supporting physical life and comfort.

      Precisely so is it in the spiritual system. The mind has its powers of receiving, assimilating, and enjoying whatever is suitable to itself, as the body with which it is furnished. While imbodied, it has only its own proper faculties; but it has, also, organs and senses in the body, by and through which it communes with matter and with spirit, with God, and nature, and man; and through which they commune with it. It receives all the ideas of material nature by outward, bodily senses, without which it could not have one idea or impression of the [292] external universe. A blind man has no idea of colours, nor a deaf man of sounds. Since the world began, every man sees by his eyes and hears by his ears. Whatever knowledge, therefore, is peculiar to any sense can never be acquired by another. If God give sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf, he does it by restoring these senses; for, since the world began, no man has ever seen by his ears nor heard by his eyes.

      So true it is, that all our ideas of the sensible universe are the result of sensation and reflection. All the knowledge we have of material nature has been acquired by the exercise of our senses and of our reason upon those discoveries. With regard to the supernatural knowledge, or the knowledge of God, that comes wholly "by faith," and "faith" itself "comes by hearing." This aphorism is divine. Faith is, therefore, a consequence of hearing, and hearing is an effect of speaking; for, hearing comes by the Word of God spoken, as much as faith itself comes by hearing. The intellectual and moral arrangement is, therefore--1. The word spoken; 2. Hearing; 3. Believing; 4. Feeling; 5. Doing. Such is the constitution of the human mind--a constitution divine and excellent, adapted to man's position in the universe. It is never violated in the moral government of God. Religious action is uniformly the effect of religious feeling; that is the effect of faith; that of hearing; and that of something spoken by God.

      Now, as faith in God is the first principle--the soul-renewing principle of religion; as it is the regenerating; justifying, sanctifying principle,--without it, it is impossible to be acceptable to God. With it, a man is a son of Abraham, a son of God; an heir apparent to eternal life--an everlasting kingdom.

      And what is Christian faith? It is a belief of testimony. It is a persuasion that God is true; that the gospel is divine; that God is love; that Christ's death is the sinner's life. It is trust in God. It is a reliance upon his truth, his faithfulness, his power. It is not merely a cold assent to truth, to testimony; but a cordial, joyful consent to it, and reception of it.

      Still, it is dependent on testimony. No testimony, no faith. The Spirit of God gave the testimony first. It bore witness to Jesus. It expected no faith without something to believe. Something to believe is always presented to faith; and that something must be heard before it can be believed; for, until it is heard, it is as though it were not--a nonentity. But it is not [293] enough that it be heard by the outward ear. God has given to every man an inward as well as an outward ear. The outward recognises sounds only; the inward recognises sense. Faith is, therefore, impossible without language; and, consequently, without the knowledge of language, and that language understood. It is neither necessary nor possible, without language--intelligible language. An infant cannot have faith; but it needs neither faith, nor regeneration, nor baptism. It was a figment of St. Augustine, adopted by Calvin, propagated in his Institutes, and adopted by his children.

      These infant regenerators are lame in both limbs: in the right limb of faith, and in the left limb of philosophy. They move on crutches, and broken crutches, too. They have no philosophy of mind, or else they abandon it in all their theological embarrassments. They will have infants regenerated, and souls morally dead quickened by a direct impulse. The Spirit of God is supposed to incubate their souls--to descend upon them and work a grace in them--a faith without reason, without argument, without evidence, without intelligence, without perception, without fear, hope, love, confidence, or approbation.

      The whole system of Calvinism, of Arminianism, is crazy just at thus point. They build a world upon the back of a tortoise; they build palaces upon ice, and repose upon couches of ether. They have not one clear idea on the subject of regeneration. It is to them a mystery--a cabalistic word--a mere shibboleth. The philosophy of mind is converted into a heap of ruins. They have the Spirit of God operating without testimony--without apprehension or comprehension--without sense, susceptibility, or feeling: and all this for the sake of an incomprehensible, unintelligible, and worse than useless theory. I, therefore, ex animo, repudiate their whole theory of mystic influence, and metaphysical regeneration, as a vision of visions, a dream of dreams, at war with philosophy, with the philosophy of mind,, with the Bible, with reason, with common sense, and with all Christian experience.

      ARG. II.--A second argument is deduced from the fact, that no living man has ever been heard of, and none can now be found, possessed of a single conception of Christianity, of one spiritual thought, feeling, or emotion, where the Bible, or some tradition from it, has not been before him. Where the Bible has not been sent, or its traditions developed, there is not one single [294] spiritual idea, word, or action. It is all midnight--a gloom profound--utter darkness. What stronger evidence can be adduced, than this most evident and indisputable fact? It weighs more than a thousand volumes of metaphysical speculations.

      One would most rationally conclude, that, if the Spirit of God did anywhere illuminate the human mind, or work into the heart the principle of faith previous to, and independent of, any knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, he would most probably do it in those portions of the earth, and amid those vast masses of human kind, entirely destitute of the Word of Life; wholly ignorant of the "only name given under the whole heaven," by which any sinful man can be saved. If, then, he has never operated in this way, where the Bible has never gone, who can prove that he so operates here, where the Bible is enjoyed?

      When, then, we reflect upon the melancholy fact so often pressed upon the attention of Christendom, by her missionaries to heathen lands, that not one-third of human kind enjoy the name of Jesus; that six-tenths or seven-tenths of mankind are wholly given up to the most stupid idolatries and delusions; that pagan darkness and Mohammedan impostures cover the fairest and largest portions of our earth, and engulf the great majority of our race in the most debasing superstitions--in the grossest ignorance, sensuality, and vice; and that from these is withholden all spiritual and Divine influence of a regenerating and salutary character, so far as all documentary evidence avoucheth. If, then, indeed, the Spirit of the Bible, the Holy Spirit of our God, did, at all, travel out of the record, and work faith, or communicate intelligence, without verbal testimony, methinks this is the proper field. And there being no evidence of his having so done, is it not a fact, as clear as a revelation from heaven--clear as demonstration itself--that the illuminating, regenerating, converting, sanctifying influence of the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation are not antecedent to, nor independent of, the written oracles of that Spirit?

      ARG. III.--A third argument is deduced from the fact, that no one, professing to have been the subject of the illuminating, converting, and sanctifying operations of the Spirit of God, can ever express a single right conception or idea on the whole subject of spiritual things, not already found in the written word. We have been favoured with numerous revelations of the experiences of the most spiritually-minded and excellent Christians [295] of this our age. And, on listening to them with the strictest attention, marking, with all our powers of discrimination, every idea, sentiment, and expression as uttered, I have never heard one suggestion, containing the feeblest ray of light, which was not eighteen hundred years old, and already found in the Holy Scriptures--read of all men who choose to learn what the Spirit of God has said to saints and sinners. Evident, then, it is, from this fact, which, I presume, I may also call an incontrovertible fact, that no light is communicated by the Holy Spirit, in regenerating and converting men; which is equivalent to saying, that, "in conversion and sanctification, the Spirit of God operates only through the Word of Truth."

      ARG. IV.--A fourth argument is derived from another fact, which calls for special consideration just at this point, to wit: whatever is essential to regeneration in any case, is essential to it in all cases. The change, called regeneration, is a specific change. It consists of certain elements, and is effected by a special agency. If it be a new heart given, a new life communicated, it is accomplished in all cases, as generation is, by the same agency and instrumentality. If then, the Spirit of God, without faith, without the knowledge of the gospel, in any case, regenerates an individual, it does so in all cases. But if faith in God, or a knowledge of Christ, is essential in one case, it is essential in every other case.

      Now, this being admitted, as I presume it will be, without farther argument or illustration, follows it not, then, that neither the Word of God nor the Gospel of Christ, neither preaching nor teaching, neither hearing nor believing is necessary to regeneration, according to the doctrine of the Protestant church? Inasmuch as that church of churches believes and teaches that infants and pagans are regenerated, in some cases, without any instrumentality at all, by the direct, naked, and abstract influence of the Spirit of God operating immediately upon their souls. As this is a most essential affair in this discussion, it is all-important that we deliver ourselves in the very words of the most orthodox of these churches:--

      "This effectual call is of God's free and especial grace alone; not from any thing at all foreseen in man: nor from any power or agency in the creature co-working with his special grace, the creature being wholly passive therein; being dead in sins and trespasses, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy [296] Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and contained in it; and that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleases; so also are other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word."¹

      Now, I ask of what use is the ministry of the Word in any case, so far as regeneration is concerned? This is a point on which I am peculiarly solicitous of illumination. Surely faith, and preaching, and the gospel ministry are all vain and useless in making a man a new creature, if dying infants and untaught pagans may be regenerated by the Spirit alone, without faith, knowledge, or any illumination whatever. Nay, indeed, if my position be true, and true it most assuredly is, that whatever is essential to regeneration in any case is essential in all cases, then, although we have three classes of subjects, to wit, elect infants, elect pagans, and elect gospel hearers, we have for them all one and the same species of regeneration.

      Miracles truly never cease on this hypothesis: inasmuch as the regeneration of every infant is a demonstration of a power as supernatural as the resurrection of the Messiah. Unfortunately, however, this power is not only never displayed to our conviction at the time, nor ever so displayed after the event as to become an object of perception, much less of sensible demonstration. If, indeed, as it sometimes happens in some branches of this school, regeneration is not regarded as another name for conversion and sanctification, but a previous work, then it will be important that we be enlightened on the question, How long the interval between regeneration and conversion, between regeneration and faith, and between regeneration and the dying infant's or pagan's exit? For if the interval be such as to preclude the possibility of conversion and sanctification, we should have the startling fact promulged, that infants, and pagans too, dying regenerate, enter heaven without being converted! Another curious question will certainly arise. Of what use is infant baptism, according to such a theory of regeneration? For, if elect infants are regenerated without knowledge, faith, repentance, or baptism, and if non-elect infants, [297] though baptized, are not regenerated, why have such a war of words about a matter virtually worth nothing to the living or to the dead?

      ARG. V.--A fifth argument shall be deduced from the Holy Spirit's own method of addressing unconverted men; by signs addressed to the sense, and words to the understanding and affections. The Messiah himself, the Seventy Evangelists, and the Twelve Apostles were accomplished and fitted for their ministry to the world by such inspirations and accompanying powers as human nature and society, Jewish and pagan, then required, and I presume always will require. They were first sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and afterwards the Apostles were sent to the Gentiles. Now, in seeking to regenerate and save the human family, they, divinely guided, uttered human words, and accompanied them with certain miracles. These were the means supernaturally chosen and used. They were certainly apposite means; appropriate and fitted to the end proposed by the donor of this intelligence and power. He seems to have sought admission into the hearts of the people by these glorious displays of Divine power presented to the eye, and these words of grace addressed to the ear. They saw the sick healed, the leper cleansed, demons dispossessed, and the dead raised; and, while seeing these solemn and significant arguments, they heard words of tenderness--words of pardon and of life, spoken with a divine earnestness, with a heavenly sympathy and affection. Thus the Spirit sought to convert them. He used means, rational means; therefore, we argue, such means were necessary, and are still, in certain modifications of that same supernatural grandeur, necessary to conversion and sanctification. Signs, as Paul explains them, were necessary, not for believers, but for unbelievers. They were necessary to faith. The miracle opened the heart, the testimony of the Lord entered, and the Spirit of God with it; and the work of conversion was finished.

      Now, may we not conclude that miracles and words are not a mere redundancy--a mere superfluity? May we not regard them as essential means, employed by the Holy Spirit, in accomplishing his work? It is, perhaps, important also to say, that the proof of a proposition is always subordinate in rank to the proposition which it proves. The life is not in the miracle, but in that which the miracle proves. The grand proposition [298] is, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He that believes this proposition is "begotten of God." It is the "incorruptible seed." It is the "living Word." It abideth for ever. The church of the Messiah is built upon it. The promises, then, certainly justify the conclusion, that, in converting and sanctifying the world, the inspired Apostles and Evangelists used means of divine authority; and neither did depend upon, nor teach others to depend upon any agency from above, dispensing with such an instrumentality.

      ARG. VI.--A sixth argument is derived from the name chosen by the Messiah as the official designation of the Holy Spirit. He calls him the Paracletos, and that, too, with a special reference to his new mission. This term, occurring some five times in the apostolic writings, is, in the common version, translated both comforter and advocate; and, by Dr. Campbell, monitor. As an official name, I prefer advocate to either of the others. It is generic, and comprehends them both. An advocate may be a monitor, or a comforter; but a monitor, or a comforter, is not necessarily an advocate. Now, as the Spirit is to advocate Christ's cause, he must use means. Hence, when Jesus gives him the work of conviction, he furnishes him with suitable and competent arguments to effect the end of his mission. He was to convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. In accomplishing this, he was to argue from three topics--1. The unbelief of the world; 2. Christ's reception in heaven; 3. The dethronement of his great adversary, the Prince of this world. Then the person, mission, and character of the Messiah alone came into his pleadings. Jesus promised him the documents. And, indeed, the Four Evangelists are arranged upon the instruction given by the Messiah to his advocate. In converting men, the Spirit, the Holy Advocate, was to speak of Jesus. Hence, speaking of Jesus by the Spirit, is all that was necessary to the conversion of men. The official service and work thus assigned the Holy Spirit is a standing evidence that, in conversion, and sanctification, he operates only through the Word. And, as it has already been shown conversion is, in all cases, the same work, he operates in this department only by and through the Word, spoken or written; and neither physically nor metaphysically.

      ARG. VII.--A seventh argument shall be deduced from the opening of the commission; from the gift of tongues, by which [299] the Advocate commenced his operations. That the Messiah had a commission for convincing and converting the world has been already shown. That he was to use arguments has been fully proved; that he was to speak and work also; that, by signs and miracles he accompanied the Word, and made it effectual. Now, that language is essential to the completion of the commission, is farther proved from the great fact, that the first gift of the Holy Spirit, under the Messiah's commission, was the gift of tongues.

      Language, not merely the various dialects of human speech, but language itself--not Hebrew, Greek, and Roman--but that of which Hebrew, Greek, and Roman are mere dialects, forms, or modes, is essential. He gave the first, and he gave the second. He made glorious display of the use of language, of the need of tongues, in commencing his new work. He gave utterance; for utterance is his gift: So Paul to the Corinthians said, "You are enriched by him in all knowledge, and in all utterance." The day of Pentecost is the best comment on this whole subject of spiritual influence, ever written. We have much use for it in this discussion. It is just as useful on the work of the Spirit, as on the genius and design of baptism.

      It seldom occurs to us, that all Christendom--the living world, is now indebted for the very book that records the name, and embalms the memory of the Messiah, and for all that is known of the Holy Spirit--for the very language of the new covenant--for the Gospel of the kingdom--and for every spiritual idea and conception of God, of heaven, of immortality, of our origin, nature, relations; obligations, and destiny, to the immediate agency of this Spirit of all Wisdom and Revelation--to the gift of tongues, or of language. Yet, true to the letter it is, that "no one could say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit."

      Some among us, through the ignorance that is in them on this grand theme, ascribe to the human mind the powers of the Holy Spirit. They describe the human mind as possessing some sort of innate power of originating spiritual ideas; to arrive at the knowledge of God by the mere contemplation of nature. They annihilate the doctrine of the fall; of human imbecility and depravity, and adorn human reason with a very splendid plagiarism, called natural religion. While at variance on almost every thing else, the mental philosopher and the Deist, the Romanist and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian [300] admirably coalesce and harmonize in this self-congratulatory assumption. They say, that man can, by the feeble, glimmering rush-light of his own studies of nature, either descend from his a priori, or ascend from his a posteriori reasonings to God--to the apprehension of his very being and perfections; human responsibility, the soul's immortality, and a future state of rewards and punishments, without the Bible, and without the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

      We have neither so studied nature nor learned the Bible. We subscribe to Paul's dogma, "The world by wisdom knew not God," and agree with him, that "it is by faith," and not by reason, "we know that the worlds were formed by the Word of God--so that things now seen existing did not formerly exist." We, indeed, ascribe all our ideas of spirit and of a spiritual system--our conceptions of God as creator--of creation itself, of providence, and of redemption, to one and the same Spirit, and to that Logos who, in one form or other, has been the prophet or the advocate of the Messiah and his cause, for some six thousand years.

      We go farther. We assign to the Spirit of all Wisdom and Revelation the origination of the spiritual language; perhaps, indeed, of all language. The most enlightened men, whether pagans, Jews, or Christians, regard language as a divine revelation--even that large portion of it derived from--sensible objects. The philosophers, from Plato down to Dr. Whitby, have claimed for the Supreme God this honour. They have refused it to either civilized or uncivilized man--to all conventional agreement. They have handled, with great effect, the plainest of propositions, that councils could not be convened; that if they had spontaneously arisen, no motions could have been made, no debates commenced nor conducted without the use of speech. Philosophers assume that men think in words, as well as communicate by them; or, at least, have some image of the thing, natural or artificial, or they cannot even think about it. The natural process, which can easily be made intelligible to all, is, that the thing is pre-existent, the idea of it next, and the word last. The line ascending is the word, the idea, the thing. The line descending is the thing, the idea, the word. Now, as the line descending is necessarily the first, we must, especially in things spiritual, admit that the spiritual things could be communicated to man only by one that comprehends them, who had [301] seen them, and who selected from the elements of that language first given to man, when he conversed face to face with God in Eden, the proper materials for words to communicate things spiritual. In strict accordance with this assumption, Moses teaches us that God conferred with Adam, and continued his lessons until Adam was able to give every creature around him a suitable name. That language commenced in this way all admit, from one fact, to wit: EVERY ONE SPEAKS THE LANGUAGE WHICH HE FIRST HEARS. This is his vernacular. A miracle is before us. The first man spoke without being spoken to; else God spoke to him. Either is a miracle: and of the two, the latter is of the easiest credence; and, indeed, it is to the faithful evidently true from the words of Moses. With Plato, then, I say, that God taught the primitive words, and from that, man manufactured the derivatives. With Newton, I say, God gave man reason and religion by giving him speech. With tradition, I say, that the god THATH of the Egyptians is the THEOS of the Bible, and the LOGOS of the New Testament. The LOGOS incarnate is the Messiah of Christianity. Therefore, the Spirit of God, now the SPIRIT of the WORD, is the origin of all spiritual words and conceptions. With Paul, therefore, I say, "We speak spiritual things in spiritual words, or words which the spirit teacheth, expressing spiritual things in spiritual words."

      ARG. VIII.--An eighth argument may be drawn from 1 Peter i. 23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." Now, as we all remember, our Lord himself compares his Word, or the Word of God, to seed planted or Sown; and, under the parable of the sower, represents its various fortunes, and beautifully teaches the true philosophy of conversion in the fact, that the good ground is the man who "receives the Word of God in an honest heart." Under both metaphors, drawn the one from the vegetable, the other from the animal kingdom, the word of God is the seed, of which we are born again or renewed in heart and life. This Word of God liveth and abideth: for God lives and abides for ever.

      With regard to the essentiality of the seed. We all know that in the vegetable kingdom, without seed there is no harvest, no fruit. And, as certain it is, that when the Word of God is not first sown in the heart, there can be no regeneration, or renewal of the spirit, and, consequently, no fruit brought forth [302] unto eternal life. So the metaphors taken from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, teach the same lesson. But does not the mere fact that Peter says, "we are born again of incorruptible seed," declare that where this incorruptible seed is not, there can be no birth!

      Is it necessary now to traverse the whole face of nature, to explore the whole kingdom of botany, to find a plant without a seed, in order to prove the proposition, that every ear of corn comes from one grain of seed deposited in the earth? No more is it essential to my argument, that I should first hear all the conversions in the world, before I conclude that there is one that originated without the word of God having been first sown in the human heart. Will not all the world believe me, that if I prove in one case that without the specific seed,--corn, wheat, &c., we cannot have a crop, that it is true in all other cases, without a particular examination of every alleged case. And from every principle of analogy, if I prove the Word in one case of a new heart to be necessary, it needs not that I prove it to be so in every other heart, and in every other case. The mere fact of calling the Gospel the incorruptible seed, is enough. Where that seed is not, the fruit of it cannot be.

      The phrase, "the incorruptible seed" of any thing, indicates, in the ears of common sense, that is essential to that thing; and if so, then who can be a Christian without being born?--and who can be born but according to one uniform and immutable law? Now, in the theory we oppose, there is no uniformity; there is a plurality of ways of being born, which, to my mind, is most palpably at fault in every particular.

      But I will adduce some other testimonies under this head of argument. We shall hear James the apostle, chapter i. 18: "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation." Hence the truth again appears as an instrument of regeneration. God's will is the origin of it; his Spirit the efficient cause of it; but the Word is the necessary instrument of it. By the Word of Truth, then, we are begotten, and not without it, according to James. We may add testimonies without increasing either authority or evidence; but, for the sake of illustration, if not for we shall offer a few other testimonies to complete this We shall hear Paul, as a father, speak to the faith in Corinth--1 Cor. iv. 15: "As my beloved [303] sons I warn yon; for though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus have I begotten you through the gospel." Paul regards the gospel just in the same attitude in which James represents it. The gospel is here the seed, the instrument of the conversion of the Corinthians.

      But the whole oracle of God is unique on this subject. God "purifies the heart by faith," that is, the truth believed--not by believing as an act of the mind, but by the truth believed, which constitutes "the faith." Paul also told the Thessalonians that God had, "from the beginning, chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Here again the belief of the truth is the instrument of sanctification and salvation. I shall conclude this little summary of a portion of the direct and positive testimony of God, in proof of my grand position on the Holy Spirit's work of conversion and sanctification, by the testimony of the Messiah, in person: "Sanctify them through thy truth, O Father, for thy Word is the truth." Whether, then, we call the truth the Word, the Word of God the gospel, it is called the seed, the incorruptible seed of the new birth; by which a sinner is quickened, begotten, born, sanctified, purified, and saved. I regard this my eighth argument as a host in itself--nay, as a solemn, direct, and unequivocal declaration of God, in attestation of the entire truth and safety of the proposition concerning both conversion and sanctification. Still I will yet add other arguments.

      ARG. IX.--One shall be based on the special commission given to Paul, as expounded by that given to the Messiah himself. And therefore, we shall read that to the Messiah, as introductory to that presented to the apostle Paul. "I give thee," says Jehovah, "for a covenant of the people; for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes; to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house." "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn." Isaiah xlii. 6, 7; lxi. 1, 2. We shall now hear Paul relate his own, as he had it from the mouth of the Lord: "I have appeared [304] unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou halt seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee--to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith, that is in me." Here, then, we have a full development, in these grand commissions, of the manner and means employed in the wisdom and grace of God in converting and sanctifying the nations of the earth, through the mediation of the Messiah. The most conspicuous point, or the chief means stated, is--that God would use light, knowledge, the gospel, and that he would OPEN THE EYES of men--turning them from darkness to light, and from the kingdom and power of Satan to God. God, then, who commanded light to arise out of darkness, has used moral, spiritual light--that is, revelation, the gospel--as the means of conversion and sanctification. Illumination is, therefore, an essential prerequisite to conversion and holiness. Without light there is no beauty; for in the dark, beauty and nothing are undistinguishable. Without light there is nothing amiable, because amiability requires the aid of light for its exposition, as much as beauty. The power of Satan is in darkness; the power of God is in light. God, therefore, works by light; and Satan by darkness. Hence, in Paul's commission, it reads, "Turn them from darkness to light;" and the consequences will be, "from the power of Satan to God;" and the ultimate effect will be remission of sins, and an inheritance among the sanctified. After the study of these, and many such similar documents, found in the Bible, I confess I am wholly unable to conceive of a religion without knowledge, without faith, without an apprehension, an intelligent, as well as a cordial reception of the gospel of Christ. I repudiate, therefore, with my whole heart, a notion of infant, idiot, and pagan regeneration--this speculative conversion, without light, knowledge, faith, hope, or love. It makes void the whole moral machinery of the Bible, the Christian ministry, and the commission of the Holy Spirit. It is no advocate of Christ; it is no comforter of the soul, on the hypothesis of infant, and pagan, and idiot regeneration.

      ARG. X.--Whatever influence is ascribed to the Word of God in [305] the Sacred Scriptures, is also ascribed to the Spirit of God. Or in other words, what the Spirit of God is at one time, and in one place, said to do, is, at some other time, or in some other place, ascribed to the Word of God. Hence I argue that they do not operate separately, but in all cases conjointly. We shall give an induction of a number of cases in exemplification of the fact. Are we said to be enlightened by the Spirit of God? We are told in another place, "The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." Again--"The entrance of thy word giveth light, and makes the simple wise." Are we said to be converted by the Spirit of God? we bear the Prophet David say, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Are we said to be sanctified through the Spirit of God? we hear our Lord pray to his Father, "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word is the truth." Are we said to be quickened by the Spirit of God? the same is ascribed to the Word of God. David says, "Thy Word, O Lord, hath quickened me." "Stay me with thy precepts, thy statutes quicken me." This is one of the strongest expressions.

      In other forms of speech, the same effects and influence are ascribed to both. Paul, in one text, says, "Be filled with the Spirit;" and, when again speaking of the same subject, in another, he says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." In both cases, the precepts are to, be fulfilled in the same way, "Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your hearts to the Lord." "The Spirit," says Paul to Timothy, "speaketh expressly that in the latter days, some shall depart from the faith." Again--"Know ye, in the last days, perilous times shall come." Again--Paul says he has sanctified the church, and cleansed it with "a bath of water and the Word." In another instance, he says, he hath saved us "with the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit." Are we said to be "born of the Spirit?" we are also said to be born again, or "regenerated by the Word of God." I might trace this matter much farther; but, I presume, as we have touched upon the most important items, we have found such an induction as will satisfy the most scrupulous. Until questioned, I shall strongly affirm it as a conclusion fairly drawn, that whatever effects or influences connected with conversion and sanctification are, in one portion of Scripture, assigned to the Word, are ascribed [306] also to the Spirit; and so interchangeably throughout both Testaments. Whence we conclude, that the Spirit and the Word of God are not separate and distinct kinds of power--the one superadded to the other--but both acting conjointly and simultaneously in the work of sanctification and salvation.

      ARG. XI.--An eleventh argument is deduced from the important fact, that resisting the Word of God, and resisting the Spirit of God, are shown to be the same thing, by very clear and explicit testimonies: such as Stephen, the proto-martyr, when filled with the Holy Spirit, and, indeed, speaking as the Holy Spirit gave him utterance, in the presence of the Sanhedrim, said, "You circumcised in heart and ears, as your fathers did, so do you. You do always resist the Holy Spirit." What proof does he allege? He adds, "As your fathers did, so do you," (resist.) "Which of the prophets did they not persecute?" This, then, is his proof. In persecuting the Prophets, they resisted the Holy Spirit; because the words spoken by the Prophets were suggested by the Spirit. We are said to resist a person when we resist his word. When, then, any one resists the words of the Prophets or the Apostles, he is said by inspired men to resist the Holy Spirit. This important fact should be more frequently insisted on than it is. Men should be taught, that, in resisting the words spoken by Apostles and Prophets, they are, in truth, resisting the Holy Spirit, by whom they uttered those words. May we not, then, consistently say with Stephen, that, when men resist the Prophets and Apostles in their writings, and will not submit to their teachings, they are resisting the Holy Spirit? This being admitted, follows it not again, that the Spirit of God operates through the truth; and that we are not to suppose that, in conversion and sanctification, they do operate separately and distinctly from each other?

      A still more impressive instance of this kind we find in the book of Nehemiah. In his admirable prayer, preserved in the ninth chapter, he has two very remarkable expressions; one in the 20th and one in the 29th verse. In the former, when speaking of the instructions given the Jews by Moses, he said, "Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them;" and in the latter, he says, "Many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy SPIRIT in thy Prophets, yet would they not hear." Here, then, we are taught that God, by his Spirit; in Moses, instructed the Jews by his good Spirit, and that, in testifying [307] to them by the Prophets, God was testifying to them by his Holy Spirit. We are, then, still more fully confirmed in the conclusion that the Spirit of God operates through his Word, and only through his Word, in conversion and sanctification; and that the Word and Spirit of God, in those spiritual and moral changes and influences of which we now speak, are never to be regarded as operating apart; that whatever is done by the Word of God, is done by the Spirit of God; and whatever is done by the Spirit, is done through the Truth--and certainly he can through that instrument operate most powerfully on the spirit of man, as all Christian experience and the saints of all time exhibit.

      ARG. XII.--A twelfth argument is deduced from the fact, that God created nothing without his Word. "He said, Let there be light, and there was light." "By faith," says Paul, "we know that the worlds were framed by the Word of God." All the details of the six days show that "God made all things by the Word of his power." Of course, then, we have no idea of any new creation or regeneration without the Word of God. It is an overwhelming fact, that God does nothing in creation or redemption without his Word. His creative power has always been imbodied in that sublime instrument. Nay, it is the sword of the Spirit. Still, there was, through that Word, an Almighty power put forth, and still there is both in conversion and sanctification. God works mightily in the human heart by his Word. The heart of the King's enemies are mightily broken by it. Hence, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

      Indeed, there is much of this wisdom of God apparent in the fact that he has chosen the term Logos to represent the Author and Founder of the Christian faith, in its antecedent state of existence. And, hence, John represents Jesus Christ himself as the Word of God incarnate: "Now the Word was made flesh," or became flesh, "and dwelt amongst us." This is a mysterious name. He had a name given him which no one can comprehend. His name is the WORD OF GOD. Now, as Jesus Christ was "once God manifest in Word," and now God manifest in flesh, we have reason to regard the Word of God as an imbodiment of his wisdom and power. This, however, is spoken with a reference to the gospel Word; for Jesus Christ is both the wisdom and the power of God, and so is his gospel; because [308] containing this development. It is the wisdom and power of God unto salvation, to every one that believes it.

      It was not, however, in a creating light alone that God employed his Word. Every work of creation is represented as the product of his Word. He said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters," and it was so. Again, "Let the dry land appear," and it was so. "Let the earth bring forth grass," and it was so. And, last of all, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. So God created man." God, therefore, made man in his own image by his Word, and he now restores him to that same image by his Word of power. Thus, we have all the authority of the Bible with us, in our views of spiritual and Divine influence. A spiritual, or moral, or creative power, without the Word of God, is a phantom, a mere speculation. It receives no countenance from the Bible.

      ARG. XIII.--The Lord has imbodied his Will in his Word. Now the will of God is another form of his power. Divine volition is Divine power. The Word of God is the fiat of God. "Let there be," is a mere volition expressed. Indeed, we may go farther and say, that the Word of the Lord is the Lord himself. The word of a king is the king himself, so far as authority or power is considered. As the Lord Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, so is his Word an imbodiment of his power. For, as Solomon says, "Where the word of a king is, there is power;" there is the power of the king himself. The Word of God is, then, the actual power of God. God is a consuming fire, and his "Word is as fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rocks to pieces." It should not, therefore, be thought strange, that the Word of God and the Spirit of God are sometimes represented as equi-potent--as equivalent. Indeed, in all those passages that represent the Word and Spirit of God as being the causes of the same effects, this equivalency is clearly implied. Hence, while Peter says, "By the Word of God, the heavens were of old," Job says, "By his Spirit he has garnished the heavens."

      Can any one imagine what power could have been superadded to the Word of God, that created light, that made the heavens and the earth, that made man upright or holy. If so, let him explain what that power could have been, which was distinct from, and attached to, or that accompanied that word by [309] which all things were created and made. Explain that accompanying power, and I will explain the accompanying spiritual or supernatural power in the case of regeneration! You cannot break a man down by physical power. You cannot soften and subdue the heart, as you grind a rock to pieces. A superadded power beyond motive, is inconceivable to any mind accustomed to think accurately upon spiritual and mental operations. The heart of man is to be subdued, melted, purified from all its hatred of God and enmity, by love; by developments of grace, and not by any conceivable influence of a different nature. His love is poured out into our hearts, says Paul, by the Holy Spirit that is given to us.

      Men had better be careful how they speak of, and how they treat, the word of God. It will stand for ever. Till the heavens pass away, not one word shall fail. Mountains, by the wasting hand of time, may crumble down to dust--oceans may recede from their ancient limits--the heavens and the earth may pass away--but God's word shall never, never pass away. It is God's mighty moral lever, by which he raises man from earth to heaven. It is his almighty, awful, sublime, and gracious will, imbodied in such a medium as can enter the secret chambers of the human heart and conscience, and there stand up for God, and confound the sinner in his presence. The love of God is all enveloped in it, and that is the great secret of its charm--the mystery of its power to save. It is love, and love alone, that can reconcile the heart of man to God. Now love is a matter of intelligence--a matter that is to be told, heard, believed, and received by faith. "The power of God to salvation" is the persuasive power of infinite and eternal love, and not the compulsive and subduing power of any force superadded to it. The promise of eternal life is itself a power of mighty magnitude. So are all the promises that enter into the Christian hope. These are almighty impulses, when understood and believed upon the veracity and faithfulness of God.

      ARG. XIV.--There yet remains another argument, if I may so call it. It is, indeed, an induction of every case of conversion reported in the inspired record. It is an account of the various influences of the Holy Spirit in adding members to the Christian church at its very commencement, and to the end of the apostolic history. Of these I will give a few specimens:--

      When the Holy Spirit fell from heaven on Pentecost, it fell [310] only on "the one hundred and twenty," and not upon the promiscuous assembly. For the multitude, after the Spirit's descent, did still upbraid the disciples with drunkenness. Those who first received it that day, preached by it to the audience. The thousands who heard were pierced to the heart, and yet had not received the Spirit. They believed, and were in agony of fear and terror, but yet had not received the Spirit. They asked what they should do, and yet had not received it. Peter commanded them to "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Of course, then, they had not yet received that gift. They, however, gladly received his word, and were baptized. We have, then, the first three thousand converts regenerated by gladly receiving the Word and baptism. This is a strong fact for the first one in my fourteenth argument.

      The second fact of conversion is found Acts iv., and the question is, how were they regenerated? We shall read the passage "Howbeit, many of them which HEARD THE WORD believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand." We are now morally certain that these five thousand were converted by the Spirit only through the Word. We have already eight thousand examples of our allegation, and not one instance of one converted without the Word.

      Our third exemplification is found Acts v. 14: "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women." Women are here mentioned as well as men. We then, got multitudes of both sexes to add, in proof that the Spirit converted these, not without the Word, but by what they saw and heard.

      We shall find a fourth example, Acts viii. 5, 6, 12. Philip went to Samaria and preached Christ to them. "And when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus, they were baptized, both men and women." So the Samaritans were regenerated by the Holy Spirit through faith in the Word, which Philip preached.

      A fifth example is found in the eunuch. "If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest" He said: "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God." Then he, too, was born of the water, and converted, not without the Word.

      Paul furnishes a sixth case. When he had fallen to the ground, [311] he heard "a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me--I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." His case is certainly one of indisputable certainty. He both saw, heard, and believed, and was baptized.

      To these I might add the case of Eneas, the citizens of Lydda and Saron, the assembly in the house of Dorcas, Cornelius, and his friends, Lydia and the jailer, Dionysius, Crispus, the Corinthians and the Ephesians, &c. &c., as reported in the Acts of the Apostles. In not one of these cases did the Holy Spirit operate without the Word, but always through it. Of the Corinthians, it was said, "And many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptized." This was true of all that were regenerated through the Spirit, during the ministry of the Apostles. Hence, to convert men by the accompanying influence of the Holy Spirit, we must do what Paul commanded Timothy--"Preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season." Then, no doubt, many will be enlightened, renewed, sanctified, and comforted by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

[CBAC 285-312]